Sleep...the elusive dream...

I am now 57 years old. The delightful age when financially we are secure (barring the apocalypse) my kids are early to mid 20's so they need me much less, if at all, my wife is great (and my editor so you know) my golf game is still 'coming along' my wrist shot in hockey is 'coming along', I have a good group of friends (through golf and hockey) and I awake most nights around 3 or 4am!

But not just wake up, turn over and fall asleep again. Wake up, wide awake. I have tried several failing strategies to combat this.

The first was to convince myself I was relaxed, everything in life is good and I would naturally fall asleep again and awake refreshed several hours into the future. Nope.

Then I went through the phase of getting up, walking around the house for 15 minutes (no phone, books, computer) then going back to bed and awake refreshed several hours into the future. Nope.

Positive thoughts. Nope.

Counting Sheep. Never actually did this so I don't know if it would work.

Prayer. Nope.

Then I would convince myself I've obviously had enough sleep, get up, walk the gauntlet down to the home office and begin work somewhere in the 5am range. Then by 11am I'm falling asleep at my desk. Nope.

I went so far as to go to my doctor and he suggested a sleep clinic to see if I had sleep apnea. Check mark, done. Nope.

I digress here but I also found my thinking in the middle of the night was always, I don't want to say negative exactly, but definitely worrisome. If there was something in my life that might cause a worry, it would rear its head in the middle of my very early morning waking hours.

But like some great ideas that might come to us while we sleep, by morning you realize its not that big a deal after all. By why does our mind do that? I don't have the answer, perhaps some sort of chemical process occurring? Imbalance? Resetting? I read a sleep book once and the author said that our brains are actually flooded every night with a cleansing liquid to take away the bad stuff. Maybe the bad stuff are worries and I happen to wake up just as they are about to be purged, giving me one final reminder that perhaps I should worry more. I brought this up with a friend recently and the same thing happens to him and he said why aren't the thoughts happier like my life is great, things couldn't be better, I have a wonderful life. But no.

Back to sleepless nights. A solution MAY have presented itself...but before I give you the secret let me give some more background.

I have very low blood pressure. An underwriter at an insurance company told me that not to worry as I am healthy. She didn't say what would happen if I wasn't healthy! But I believe this causes me to be tired more than most. I saw a t-shirt one day that said 110% tired. That's me.

My wife Carolyn is a holistic nutritionist so we decided that diet might be the answer. So I cleaned it up but not only cleaned it up, I became a raw vegan. A raw vegan only eats raw food. At this point when I tell people this, they kind of look up and think about that and say things like, so no bread? What about chicken? Then they realize some of their favourite things and say you can't eat this or that?? 'That's crazy'. I did this about 7 years ago. I did it for 2 and half years! I honestly don't know how I did it that long but when you only give your body good things, your body says thank you and it heals things that need healing. So I firmly believe in our current diets our body is always fighting things that were not meant for it...sugar, fat, bad oils, donuts! So if it is putting its energy towards all these things it can't put energy towards healing or just not feeling tired all the time. And illness results, whether weak immune, and colds or something more serious.

But I'm not a doctor, just speaking from experience that I felt great and some minor issues were fixed. Luckily I only had minor issues! The problem was I was now waking at around 5 or 530am, thinking I had enough sleep and getting up and starting work. Then tired throughout the day as I wasn't getting the 8 hours I need. I hear some people need less. An old associate of mine seemed to survive on 5. I need 8.

So one day I decided at 5am, forget this I'm staying in bed. I had 2 more hours of sleep and had the best day of my life. So I didn't necessarily need to be a raw vegan...I just needed more sleep. So if you are a doctor and you ask your patient how many hours they get? or are you getting enough sleep? and they say 6 or 7 or yes...call their bluff, they may not actually know the right answer but before going radical and doing sleep tests and special diets...tell them to just get more sleep!

You may say but James you said you are having problems again, waking up in the middle of the night...just get more sleep! Yes, currently waking up but I force myself to stay in bed, and sleep some more. The problem is the sleep from that point forward isn't of the highest quality. It helps but its not the best and it's definitely not sleeping through the night, start to finish! Sleeping through the night is key!

What about stress? Definitely have it. Kids. Family. Work. No I'm not going to say marriage!! My wife is my editor! So we have to be sure we are dealing with all of that. Okay, Transcendental Meditation course. Check. Nope. (I still do highly recommend meditation however as it actually may be part of the solution).

So over the last couple of weeks I've done the following and knock on wood, so far it's working. I can't say for sure which of these is the true factor, if any, or if it is a combination of them all but if you can't sleep through the night this may be a good starting point.

• no phone after 8pm

• no computer after 8pm

• TV seems to be fine, I even re-watched the very violent last episodes of Game of Thrones with my son (he's watching for the 1st time) and I slept straight through the night

• No caffeine after noon, this one is harder than I thought it would be and your hour may be different from mine i.e. you can handle later. My father (Scottish) used to have a cup of tea at 11pm and wonder why he wasn't sleeping well! And everyone is different, some people can drink an espresso at 11pm and sleep like a baby! Shout out to Fab!

• I've also for the most part eliminated junk food...almost

• Don't eat too late, ideally no food after 8pm...yes another hard one!

• And I've given up bread, in all its wonderful, delicious forms! I think this is actually the biggest difference. No bread, sandwiches, croissants, cereal, cakes, donuts, tacos, burritos (just listing all of my favourite things here), Steak sandwiches, Toast and jam, toast and peanut butter, big thick white bread with peanut butter and jam (drool!). Ahhh!

• No reading in bed. I only say this because I like to read before bed but the one time I've done it in the last week I woke up in the middle of the night.

• Transcendental meditation or whatever kind works for you. Ideally twice a day. Start of day and end of workday (although this can be hard to pull off).

These aren't easy per say but in the grand scheme of things perhaps they are only 1st world problems obviously. But given how important sleep is, at least to me, it's worth a few challenges and sacrifices.

So coming full circle, no sleep, diet cleanup (no raw vegan this time), stress management...sleeping through the night. It's that simple!

The experiment continues...good night.